I see these days photographs of horses ridden with force and without respect, and I see these days people discussing what is wrong with these photographs, and I feel we all know what is wrong: a human. Or rather: his awareness.
No real progress and change is possible without expanding our awareness. Expanding awareness is not based on instructing and educating, because these factors so often bring another tensions (expressed by thoughts, like “Do I agree with it? Don’t I agree with it?” etc.). Expanding awareness is based on removing tensions that exist in us, and on creating creative space, that is tension-free, in which we are free to take new actions.
We remove tensions that block the existing communication between a horse and a human from being noticed, understood and being able to bring the change that the horse invites us to experience. And we allow ourselves to be inspired by our horse to take the next steps without fear, doubt, judgement, etc.
In this space we discover ourselves, and we learn:
WHO wants to ride the horse (and why);
WHO puts the saddle on the horse and mounts him (and why);
WHO rides the horse (and why);
Today, I invite you to meet Sari and Romi. Sari Kaipainen is my advanced GroundWork Student. Aafter a year and a half of careful ground work preparations based on Calmness and expanding Sari’s awareness, Sari has been invited, for the first time truly invited, by Romi to ride her.
They have been riding before, but now it’s different:
No head up, no running forward from under the rider’s seat, no pain in the rider’s back caused by the bracing seat that is full of tensions created to force the horse into the given position and to become more tensed and thus unable to feel the tensions in the horse’s body that is asking us to proceed differently. No bit in the horse’s mouth, no control, no force, no techniques based on hiding the seed of ugliness that started it all: the horse didn’t want to be ridden in the first place.
Why the horse didn’t want to be ridden?
Because it was not certain to him WHO WILL BE RIDING HIM.
If your being is based on your thoughts, your being is weak and changing: you can honestly promise your horse that you want to change and never force him to do things, but when you mount him a “different you” will seat on him and will make all the further decisions when the horse says “NO” to something you wished to achieve.
How come it happens so easily? How come we forget so easily about our promises to our horses? Because the one who breaks these promises is a different person, the one that never promised anything to the horse.
If you do not know who you truly are, is like there are millions of yous living inside you. And every single one of them will make different decisions and will be able to break all the promises that were made before by the other yous.
If we truly want to improve the way people ride their horses, we need to make sure that the person that promises something to the horse, and then mounts him — is the very same person.
Without this simple shift no education, no petitions, no discussions can bring any effect. How come? Because one persons will nod their heads upon it, and their the other persons will take actions when any difficulties arise during riding.
Today, I want to share with you few moments from my student’s time from the saddle with her horse. I want to share with you how it looks now.
I don’t want to focus now on what was happening before, when they stopped riding together, because it is not longer important, and when we truly change, this change is so powerful and profound that it also changes our past…
Today, I want to share with you how Sari and Romi are together now, and I want to tell you how their days are filled with communication and trust, and how Romi is insisting on being ridden, rolling and pushing the mounting block towards Sari, and not wanting to leave the riding arena before Sari mounts her for the n-th time during the given day and opens yet once again to experience something new that Romi wanted her to feel and understand.
The change happened by removing tensions and allowing Romi to reach out to Sari, and Sari to find time and space to FEEL what Romi is telling her. And change upon it.
The change was started by fully realising the WHO part of the sentence: WHO WILL BE RIDING MY HORSE?
Because this WHO determines all the WHYs and HOWs that happen later…
My whole being sings when I can share my long, un-cut sessions that guided Sari&Romi to this place, right from the scratch, with Members of my JoinAnna Training Videos Program: to inspire you to remove tensions and open yourself up for a full two-way communication with your horse.
ENJOY! :)
I found myself taking nice deep breaths while watching this. Beautiful ❤
Very precious to see this.